


Welcome home

by Alice_huhhuhhhu



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adorable, Angry Sam Winchester, Angst, Arguing, Cute, Emotional, Fireplaces, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gabriel (Supernatural) Lives, Gabriel (Supernatural) is a Little Shit, Gabriel's coat, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Illusions, Injured Gabriel (Supernatural), Lies, Love, M/M, One Shot, Out of Character, Praying Sam Winchester, Romance, Worried Sam Winchester, i think, why is there a tag for that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 03:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18682993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_huhhuhhhu/pseuds/Alice_huhhuhhhu
Summary: Gabriel has just gotten his grace back and already left again, so Sam is more than a little worried about the archangel. When said angel suddenly shows up in front of him, he knows something is off.Set in S13 after Gabriel’s recovery, but no knowledge of the plot is really necessary to understand this piece~





	Welcome home

**Author's Note:**

> I originally intended to write this for my other collection thingy, but because it got wayyy longer than I thought it would get (and because I'm keeping open that option to add a second chapter), I decided to post it as a separate piece.  
> Enjoy some fluffy Sabriel~

Sam couldn’t believe it.

He couldn’t believe his eyes when, after something that felt like a childish game of hide and seek through the whole bunker, he couldn’t find a trace of Gabriel. Whether he liked it or not, he had to accept that he trickster was gone. With a frustrated sigh, the hunter made his way back to his room where he sat down on his bed to organize the chaos in his head.

Where could that little shit be? Sam would never admit it, but he was worried. The archangel had only been with them for a few days and now, just after he had gotten a bit of his power back, he had left without a sign.

Would he be back? Honestly, his biggest fear was that the trickster would get captured again… or worse. How many times had he died by now? Three? Four? Well, he’d never been really dead, but he was definitely pushing his luck lately.

Running a hand through his hair, Sam forced himself to clear his mind before he hesitantly whispered the archangel’s name. Yes, he was praying to the angel. Yes, it was the first time he’d ever tried to contact him this way, and, to be honest, the self-proclaimed expert of supernatural beings had no idea if it would work the same way as with Castiel- except Cas never listened to him because he seemed to prefer Dean.

“Gabriel, I don’t know where you are or why you went out alone, but…”

Sam trailed off, he struggled to find the right words to express his current emotions, and the last thing he wanted was for the archangel to laugh about him because he was acting like an overprotective mother. What exactly did he want to tell Gabriel anyway? “I’m worried you might die again and never come back”? “How dare you sneak away like that after all we’ve done for you”? “Get the hell back here where I can keep an eye on you”? He had to admit, maybe except for the first statement, he sounded _exactly_ like an overprotective mother.

A desperate “I need you” formed in his head, but _hell_ _no_ , this was not an option and these words would never leave his mouth, he had a reputation to maintain.

“This doesn’t work” the man concluded, getting up and making his way towards the back door. On his way, he came across Dean who sat in the kitchen, a bottle of beer in one hand and the car keys in the other.

“Couldn’t find your boyfriend?” he joked with a wink, but he had mercy on the taller one and let him pass without a long discussion -the best decision he could make since Sam looked like he wasn’t in the mood for his shenanigans right now. Dean had plans for the night anyway, and those plans didn’t involve getting into an argument with his little brother, at least not today.

 

As soon as the door closed behind the hunter, he felt much better. Still worried, but not like a caged bird captured in his tiny room. How long had it been since he had last taken a casual walk in the woods? The sun was about to set at the horizon, already disappearing behind the tree tops, and the calming atmosphere of the forest ahead seemed so inviting that he couldn’t help but follow where his legs brought him.

Sam followed the narrow path winding through pine trees, beeches, oaks and a variety of other trees he could name, which Dean would have laughed about and called him a nerd for. However, Dean wasn’t here, he was on the way to some bar or club or whatever, and he wouldn’t be back before noon tomorrow, so there was enough time to enjoy the silence. Birds were singing from above; he could even spot a squirrel cheerfully jumping from bench to bench to gather food reserves for the cold season. The hunter remembered Crowley’s nickname for his brother and chuckled quietly as he sat down next to a fallen tree to admire his surroundings.

As it got colder, he piled up a few pieces of wood to light a fire with the lighter from his pocket, which was mostly used for a different purpose than inflaming campfires. He found it quite reassuring to use it for something else than torching corpses for once.

Staring into the flames, Sam laid back against the trunk of the tree, barely managing to keep his eyes open. The search for his angelic friend had been exhausting and he would be lying if he said that he’d had more than three or four hours of sleep last night.

 

Pictures started to appear in his head, pictures of Mary who lost her life in the flames of a ceiling fire, pictures of his girlfriend who had suffered the same tragic death. He remembered how they had burned and said goodbye to allies and friends, giving them the hunter’s funeral they deserved. And, last but not least, a picture of Gabriel who sat down across the fireplace, who held a stick into the flames to roast marshmallows on it.

Wait, _what_?

Sam blinked, once, twice, but the angel stayed, looked up and, with a wink, suggestively took a bite of the caramelized treat, only to start coughing violently seconds after because the idiot had burned his tongue.

“Gabriel?”

The hunter could only stare, and the archangel stared back at him, swallowed, picked another few marshmallows from the package and repeated the procedure.

“Stop staring, it’s just me, kiddo.”

Sam was angry, of course he was, but first and foremost, he was relieved.

“We thought you were captured again. Or hurt. Or _dead_. I prayed to you, Gabriel, and you didn’t even bother to answer, and now you just sit here roasting marshmallows? Where have you been?”

“You call that a prayer? Whatever. Here and there, didn’t do anything specific…”

The answer came a bit too quickly. Sam didn’t like the tone of the archangel’s voice, something was off, during the time he had spent with the trickster, he had learned to notice when he was lying. He did so quite often, and the hunter was sure he was hiding something from him right now.

The man repeated his name again, slowly and with a dangerous undertone that had the archangel drop his cheerful expression.

“I was… settling some old grudges?” he tried, gesturing towards himself, “but now I’m here and as you can see, I’m neither hurt nor dead. Come on Sammoose, don’t ruin the mood, it’s kind of romantic out here, don’t you think? We could stay here and make out and then- “

He was cut off as Sam randomly picked up a piece of wood and threw it at him. There was no way he could have dodged or caught it in time, and as expected, it went right through the angel’s body that vanished as soon as it made contact with the object, restoring itself immediately and giving Sam an apologetic half-smile.

“Whoops. I should have known how smart you are. You won’t let me fool you anymore, huh?”

 

Now Sam was undoubtedly more angry than relieved, and he was planning to take it out on the trickster right here and now. Taking a deep breath, he started to shout at the shorter man, but his own words surprised him.

“Do you have any idea how worried I was about you? How worried I still _am_? You just got your grace back and the first thing you do is get yourself in trouble, not giving a care in the world about how we- how _I_ feel about that. I’ve seen you die, Gabriel, more than once, and I won’t be able to see it again. What do you think you’re doing, disappearing and showing up only to fool me like this?”

“That’s the thing, Samsquatch” the nickname should have let it sound playful if it hadn’t been spat out in an angry tone instead, “I _didn’t_ want you to worry, so I created this hallucination to make you believe I never left!”

So he intended to fool him from the start, he intended to lie to him? That didn’t exactly make the taller one happier. Who did he think he was anyway, fooling him like This? Sam had to admit he had fallen for Gabriel’s tricks countless times before, especially way back when he and Dean had hunted him as the trickster, but those days were gone.

Sam had thought that they had developed something like trust over time, he’d believed that maybe, _by any chance_ , there could have been more than this weird mix of pranking and fighting side by side. He’d almost been sure that, during the last few days, ever since they had taken Gabriel in, they had developed a stronger emotional bond.

Turned out he’d been fooled again …right? Sam’s voice was nearly trembling when he continued.

“You can’t just show up and leave again. And I don’t just mean this situation. You can’t come back only to get killed. It’s great to have you back, but at the same time… it scares me to let you go. Call me clingy, call me overprotective, call me a fool if you want to, but please don’t make me suffer. Not again. _Never again_.”

The man’s voice was no longer loud and accusing, it had gone rather soft. Meanwhile, Gabriel couldn’t say a single thing, surprised and shocked by the hunter’s words. He had even stopped chewing on his marshmallows, which came close to a small miracle.

“I missed you, okay? I missed you, but at the same time, I want to do bad things to you for messing with me like this…” Upon the eyebrow waggle that followed, Sam rolled his eyes. He was trying to have a serious conversation, or, well, monologue here, for God’s sake! “… and I don’t mean it in a kinky way” he added quickly, because this wasn’t where this talk was going.

“Give me a moment to breathe, Gabe. This has to stop, or I’ll-“ he swallowed, the words were harder to get out than expected, although he knew exactly that they had to be spoken out loud for the archangel to understand, “…or I’ll _make_ _it_ stop. I mean it. Next time you come back, you better stay. Come home, Gabriel.”

Sam couldn’t look Gabriel in the eyes. He just _couldn’t_. If he’d look in these golden whiskey eyes now, he’d actually start to cry, he knew it. Instead, he tried to concentrate on Gabriel’s whole face, a face which didn’t really seem to belong to the trickster. He was serious, eyebrows knit together, mouth a thin line. Was he angry? Was he thinking about his words? Sam couldn’t figure it out, and that fact made him even more anxious. Being the tease he was, the archangel didn’t give him a reply though. He just stood there and observed.

In the shadows cast by the beautiful flames, the ones from the fire, not those in the angel’s eyes, Gabriel looked so much taller than his usual self.  More muscular, more powerful, stronger than Sam had ever imagined the midget to look like.

It must have been only an illusion, Sam told himself, when he believed to see shadows of wings unfold behind Gabriel’s back. This was a side of him he’d never seen; the invincible warrior, the mighty archangel who had killed countless enemies in battle. The mysterious shapes were there for a heartbeat until the unfamiliar image disappeared, and the angel himself with it, dissolving into millions of particles the hunter couldn’t quite identify.

A cloud of something between fireflies and glitter surrounded him, blown away by an imaginary gust of wind. It would have been cheesy if it hadn’t been so damn beautiful, and Sam couldn’t help but stare as the glowing trail rose up until it seemed to become part of the star-studded sky.

 

He was gone.

Gabriel was gone, and so was the warmth he had brought with him. The small fire seemed less comfortable all of a sudden, it couldn’t provide enough heat to keep him from shivering from the cold air, but he made no move to leave.  Sam didn’t think about standing up now, he didn’t even bother to close his jacket, lost in thought and unable to find the words for what had just happened.

The angel hadn’t even said goodbye. _He hadn’t even said a damn thing!_ Had Sam been too harsh? For a moment, he had a guilty conscience, but then he remembered the smile on the archangel’s lips. It had been hard to see, but it had been there, and it was proof that the trickster wasn’t mad at him, not really. What exactly did it mean though?

“He will be back” Sam suddenly realized, with a dumbfounded expression. This conversation hadn’t been yet another final goodbye, it had been a promise, a hidden assurance that he’d return soon, that he’d come home.

And he’d come home to stay. 

Still, after figuring this out, he wanted to sleep here, by the dying fireplace, nothing but the nature around him and the stars above. It wasn’t lonely, it was _relaxing_ , and soon after, the tall man was fast asleep, already dreaming of Gabriel’s return. Meanwhile, a shooting star left a golden trail on the night sky.

 

When the younger Winchester woke up the next morning, he felt something soft and warm around his body. Opening his eyes, he figured out it was a plaid blanket, carefully draped over him. It was a bit short so only half his chest was still covered, but… at least it was something. The grass beneath his hands was still wet with morning dew, however, it was already broad daylight.

Last night’s events replayed in his head, immediately putting him in a good mood as he finally stretched and got up, his mouth watering at the smell of pancakes and… wait a second. _Pancakes_? He was out in the wilderness, or at least a fifteen-minute-walk away from the bunker, so there was no way it could smell like pancakes here. Unless…

Carefully, almost in slow motion, Sam turned around, where an unimpressed archangel casually shoved food into his mouth, just like last night.

“You little-“ he managed to breathe out, unable to conceal his happiness though. The shorter man lifted his head. Through a mouth full of breakfast, he mumbled a quick “good morning to you too, sleeping beauty” before he took another bite.

“You’re… real this time? No tricks, no illusions?” It was too good to be true, Sam had to check to be completely sure, or he’d have a breakdown right here and now. 

“Stop pulling on my hair, that hurts. I’m here, okay? Now would you please stop messing up my hairstyle and say something nice? Seriously, I had to kill a few dozen people last night to get my revenge before I could come here, and I practically saved you from freezing to death, and, oh, I made breakfast and- “

Gabriel was cut off by Sam who practically suffocated him in his arms, making it impossible for the trickster to keep talking, resist or even breathe. The position was a bit awkward; the tall hunter was almost kneeling and still towered above the archangel who sat on the trunk of a fallen tree.

“Will you… let go anytime soon?” a muffled voice asked hopefully.

“No.”

And nope, those weren’t tears in Sam’s yes. Those. Were. Not. Tears. He was so glad Dean wasn’t out there with them to tease him.

“As beautiful and emotional this is, I’ll have to ask you to let go because your left elbow is poking my stab would a little… just sayin’.”

The statement turned out to be effective, as the hunter let go immediately before he started to scan the angel’s body for injuries. He hadn’t noticed it in his euphoria before, only now he realized that Gabriel looked fairly beaten up. The black coat he wore covered most of the damage, but at second glance, Sam could spot stains of dried blood on the white shirt underneath.

“Damn, is all of this from you?” he almost didn’t dare to ask, he knew the answer anyway. Why did the dumbass have to be so careless all the time?

“Uhhh… maybe? Probably?”

“And you couldn’t heal this up by yourself?”

“Yes, because _somebody_ used the rest of my grace for a stupid spell!”

Sam shook his head in disbelief, there was no point in starting an argument here, since the angel obviously needed to be taken care of as soon as possible. With a surprised yelp from the shorter male, the hunter pulled him onto his back and started walking, heading back to the bunker where Castiel would hopefully fix up the wounds with his grace.

However, the Winchester couldn’t refrain from scolding his wounded archangel.

“Apparently you had enough grace left to snap up a ton of pancakes, and you should really lose some weight. Also, next time, don’t use up your power to show me stupid hallucinations!”

“Okay, first of all: shut up, moose-weight. Pancakes are delicious. And you should be glad I talked to you, otherwise you’d have been so worried about me that you would have stayed awake all night long!”

“No point in starting an argument my ass” the hunter hissed through gritted teeth, picking up his pace while the discussion went on all the way back to the bunker.

 

Once they arrived at the world map table, Sam knelt down and carefully let the wounded archangel climb off his back to sit on the surface, feet dangling over the edge. He looked more like a child than a century-old celestial being, but the way he struggled to keep up his happy appearance reminded the hunter that he must have perfected his acting skills for hundreds of years, making him wonder if and why he was the only one who could look through the disguise.  He’d have to ask the trickster about it later… maybe. It’s not like he’d expect a serious answer.

If Dean had been home, he’d have mocked his younger brother about how carefully he helped the shorter one out of his white, or rather white-and-red shirt, ignored the suggestive comments from the angel and focussed completely on making this as quick and painless as possible. Gabriel didn’t complain, not once. He didn’t even dare to make a noise when Sam inspected his wound, but his discomfort was clearly visible by the way his hands were shaking, although he curled them up into fists to stop the involuntary movement.

“Stop it” the hunter pleaded, unable to watch the show the trickster put up. It shouldn’t have, yet somehow it hurt him how little the golden-haired man seemed to trust him given the situation.  

“Just hurry up then, kiddo.”

Although it wasn’t more than a strangled whisper -because Sam had begun to diligently clean the dried blood off his upper body- the Winchester could hear the unspoken “sorry” in his voice. This wasn’t about trust, he realized, rather about the fact that the angel was trying to keep up his dignity as the powerful creature he was, as the hero who had finally gotten his revenge. He had planned to come home as a winner, not beaten up and bleeding. Sam understood- he himself preferred to play pretend when he was feeling vulnerable, so he could at least partly sympathize with the other one.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“I didn’t-“ Gabriel tried to argue, but he was unexpectedly silenced by Sam’s lips. It was just a feathery touch, and although it was over so soon it might have been a product of his imagination, Gabriel was sure it had truly happened. The kiss successfully rendered him speechless until the hunter had secured the bandage with a safety pin. Once he had completed the task, his eyes shot up to meet golden ones, a loving smile on his lips that the shorter one couldn’t help but return.

 

“Welcome home, Gabriel.”


End file.
